CVE Source Check

Audits CVE/vulnerability source coverage for a technology stack. Given an inventory of components and (optionally) the feeds you currently monitor, it maps each component to authoritative CVE sources, flags gaps, and emits audit-ready reports.

Scope

In scope	Out of scope
Mapping components → authoritative feeds via a versioned registry	Running vulnerability scanners (Trivy/Snyk/etc.)
Reporting coverage and gaps in JSON + Markdown	Fetching CVE content or ranking by severity
Optional HEAD-check for source URL reachability	Integrating with private/commercial vuln databases
Audit-ready output (deterministic, reproducible)	Live LLM research per run

Inputs

Flag	Purpose
--inventory <file>	JSON inventory: [{name, version?, type?}, ...] or {components: [...]}.
--inline "name@ver,name,..."	Quick comma-separated list. Mutually exclusive with --inventory.
--current-sources <file>	Optional. One URL per line. Blank lines and # comments skipped.
--service <name>	Free-form name used in report header and filenames.
--check-urls	HEAD-check every source URL (5s timeout, graceful degradation).
--registry <path>	Override default tech-source-registry.json.
--out-dir <path>	Output directory (default: cwd).

JSON inventory format only. YAML is not supported — stdlib does not ship a YAML parser.

Outputs

File	Format
cve-source-report-{service}-{YYYYMMDD}.md	Human-readable audit report.
cve-source-report-{service}-{YYYYMMDD}.json	Machine-readable per references/output-formats.md.

Exit code	Meaning
0	Full coverage.
1	Gaps exist (unmapped components or unmonitored sources).
2	At least one source URL is unreachable (only with --check-urls).
3	Input error (missing/malformed registry or inventory).

Workflow

Phase 1: LOAD

1. Locate the registry: tech-source-registry.json next to this SKILL.md by default.
2. Build an inventory:
   • From --inventory: parse JSON; accept either a list or {components: [...]}.
   • From --inline: split on commas, parse name@version pairs.
3. If --current-sources is provided, read URLs (one per line); normalize for case-insensitive comparison.

Gate: at least one inventory component is present. Empty inventory → exit 3.

Phase 2: MAP & VERIFY

1. For each component, look up name (and aliases) in the registry.
   • Found → status mapped, attach the registry's source list.
   • Missing → status unmapped, sources [].
2. If current sources were loaded, mark each source monitored: true when its normalized URL appears in the set.
3. If --check-urls is set, HEAD-check every unique source URL. Treat 200/301/302/403/405 as reachable; record definite failures and network errors distinctly. See references/source-verification.md.

Gate: every component has a status; every source has monitored and reachable fields populated (reachable: null when checks are skipped).

Phase 3: REPORT

1. Compute the summary: components, mapped/unmapped, monitored, coverage %, gaps, unreachable.
2. Write the JSON report.
3. Write the Markdown report:
   • Summary table.
   • Components table with ✅ / ⚠️ / ❌ markers.
   • Gaps section listing primary then secondary sources to add (only when gaps exist).
   • Unmapped section listing registry-extension TODOs (only when unmapped components exist).
4. Print a one-screen summary to stdout including report paths.
5. Set the exit code per the table above.

Gate: both files exist on disk and the summary printed; exit code reflects the audit result.

Quick start

# Inline, offline, no monitoring data
python3 scripts/check-cve-sources.py \
  --inline "go@1.22,alpine@3.19,postgres@16,redis@7,nginx@1.25" \
  --service my-service

# Inventory file + current monitored feeds
python3 scripts/check-cve-sources.py \
  --inventory examples/inventory.example.json \
  --current-sources examples/current-sources.example.txt \
  --service my-service

# Same, with link verification
python3 scripts/check-cve-sources.py \
  --inventory examples/inventory.example.json \
  --current-sources examples/current-sources.example.txt \
  --service my-service \
  --check-urls

Extending the registry

To add a technology, edit tech-source-registry.json. Each entry needs name, aliases, type, and 1–3 sources. Schema lives at references/registry-schema.md.

Reference Loading Table

Signal	Load These Files	Why
adding a technology to the registry	registry-schema.md	Defines registry shape and allowed values.
checking source URLs	source-verification.md	Defines HEAD-check semantics and graceful degradation.
generating audit reports	output-formats.md	Defines JSON and Markdown report contracts.

Error handling

"ERROR: failed to load registry"

Cause: registry file missing or malformed JSON. Solution: confirm tech-source-registry.json is at --registry (or default location) and parses with python3 -m json.tool.

"ERROR: failed to load inventory"

Cause: inventory file missing, malformed JSON, or unexpected shape. Solution: validate with python3 -m json.tool. Inventory must be a list or an object with a components key.

"ERROR: inventory is empty"

Cause: no usable components after parsing. Solution: confirm each entry has a name. Inline form requires non-empty tokens.

Coverage stuck at 0%

Cause: --current-sources URLs do not match registry URLs exactly (e.g., extra path segments, trailing slashes). Solution: copy URLs directly from the registry. The script normalizes scheme/host case and trailing slash; everything else must match.

--check-urls flags many [—] entries

Cause: network issues (proxy, DNS, offline) — recorded as reachable: null. Solution: re-run without --check-urls for the audit; investigate network separately. Network errors do not affect the gap exit code.